


What Comes Next

by Hatterized



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Bonding, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, loss of a child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 21:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15566811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hatterized/pseuds/Hatterized
Summary: Siddiq and Rick begin to get closer after the war.





	What Comes Next

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marium/gifts).



> Rick & Michonne were never together in this au, just makes things easier because I don't like them actually breaking up, it makes me sad. This clarification is probably unnecessary lmao. For Marium because he got me shipping these two!

It’s not really a surprise that Rick manages to reopen the stitches in his side in less than a week of Siddiq putting them there. He’s more than a little reckless right now, not thinking of himself. He goes on a run just to blow off some steam even though Siddiq _specifically_ told him to take it easy for at least a week, and he feels the stitches rip and pop painfully the minute he slashes out too far with a knife to take out a walker.

Luckily, he’s not far from home.

He stumbles into the infirmary, grimacing and trying to put pressure on the wound, which is has long since begun to soak through his shirt. There’s a sharp intake of breath when Siddiq sees him, worry knitting his brows together and clouding his warm brown eyes. Instantly, Rick feels foolish and guilty for having to bother him when he already has his hands full with Negan.

“Rick, what-” he begins, one gentle hand on his arm guiding him to sit on the empty bed beside a thankfully sleeping Negan.

“Went out on my own,” Rick mutters, eyes dodging the other man’s worried gaze. “I shouldn’t have. Felt ‘em rip as soon as I pulled my knife.” He glances up sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I know you said to take it easy.” He chuckles to himself. “Guess I’m havin’ trouble doin’ that these days.”

“It’s alright,” Siddiq replies, his voice tender in a way that feels soothing, comforting. Ever since he’d imparted the story of how Carl had died, Rick's felt more at ease around him, and the other man seems to feel the same. “You really should be careful, though. For real this time.” His eyes twinkle with mirth, and Rick feels something stir in his chest. “You deserve the rest. I’ll stitch you back up.”

Rick smiles gratefully, and Siddiq blinks for a moment, caught off guard by the unfamiliar look of happiness on the man's face. 

 _Charming_ , he thinks, _but in that rare way that he doesn’t know it._

He turns to gather the supplies to suture Rick back up, and that’s when they both hear it.

“Aw, look, I’ve got fuckin’ company. I didn’t know I had visiting hours.”

Siddiq winces.

Rick gives the man on the bed beside him a cutting glare. “I'm not here for you.”

Negan’s eyes fall to the blood seeping through Rick’s shirt. “You hurt yourself there, Ricky-boy?”

Rick deflects the question. “Surprised you can talk.” The man’s voice sounds like gravel. 

“Can’t keep me quiet for long,” Negan retorts. Rick gets the feeling that, under normal circumstances, he would have sounded like he was gloating. There’s not as much pride in his voice now.

“Alright,” Siddiq interrupts, turning toward his patients, “Rick, I need you to-”

Rick’s already at it, though, deftly unbuttoning his shirt and then shrugging out of it, baring his toned upper body to the two men.

Shockingly, that shuts Negan up.

Siddiq blinks hard for a moment, feeling his face grow hot as he watches how Rick’s muscles move and flex just beneath his skin. Not for the first time, he can’t help but _notice_ the man. It’s hard not to- he’s attractive, a touch of rugged with a bit of softness, and Siddiq finds himself staring at Rick’s half-naked body for a second too long.

Negan’s right there with him, for once struck silent by the image of Rick Grimes shirtless and shameless less than three feet in front of him.

Rick tips his head, confused, and Siddiq snaps back into action.

“Right, uh…just lie down and I’ll- I’ll stitch you back up.”

He thinks it’s rather unfair that Rick still looks that sinfully gorgeous even with blood dripping down his side and seeping into the sheets below him. Really, such things shouldn’t be allowed.

It looks like Rick’s been taking care of the wound up until the stitches ripped- it’s clean and healing nicely, no signs of infection. Siddiq does his best to focus on the needle and not how warm and soft Rick’s skin is beneath his palm. There's sparse greying hair across his chest and disappearing into the waistline of his jeans. He redoubles his efforts to concentrate, swallowing hard. “Do you want, uh- painkillers or anything?” It’s a formality, him asking. They both know what Rick’s answer will be.

“No, I’m fine.” Rick shakes his head, shifts a little on the bed for a better angle. He doesn’t flinch when the needle pierces his skin, just grimaces slightly.

Siddiq recalls the answer Rick had given the first time he’d asked him that question.

_Don’t waste them on me._

It isn't machismo thing, either, and that’s something Siddiq likes a lot about Rick- despite being a hardened survivor, a leader, and now a war hero of sorts, he doesn’t put up a front. There’s nothing about him that feels forced or egotistical. There’s pride in him, sure, but Siddiq learned to tell the difference between the two a long time ago.

Rick can be reserved, gruff, harsh, paranoid, bloodthirsty. But at the heart of him, Rick Grimes is a man who gives second chances, deserved or not. A man that refuses painkillers and medical treatment until his adversary is safely resting.

Negan had been pretty out of it for the first day in the infirmary. Siddiq wonders if he realizes that Rick came back to check on him over and over until he was awake, that he laid in the bed beside him with his bloody fist to his own wound, making sure that Negan would survive.

Probably not, but Negan is being awfully quiet while Rick’s getting tended to right now. Which is good, because technically he’s not supposed to be talking all that much, anyway. Doctor’s orders. Not that he’s followed them at all.

“Healing up alright?” Rick asks, breaking through the quiet.

There’s a _humph_ from the bed beside them. “Like you give a fuck.”

“Christ, you’re worse than a teenager,” Rick jokes, and instantly the easy air between the three of them changes. Rick goes stiff under Siddiq’s hand, because he knows what’s coming next.

“You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Rick?” Negan sneers. “Good thing you’ve got me here to give you shit now that your boy’s six feet under.”

Siddiq doesn’t remember deciding to stand up, but suddenly he’s standing over Negan’s bed, glowering down at the smug man staring up at him in mild surprise.

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that you shouldn’t be talking right now.” He prods at the bandages on Negan’s neck just enough to see the man swallow hard and wince. “You want to rip those open? Lose your voice entirely? Be my guest. It won’t be quite as fun the second time around when I don’t give you the painkillers Rick refused the first time so that you could have them.”

Negan glares silently up at him, all impotent rage and barely restrained violence. But he doesn’t speak again.

Slowly, Siddiq sinks back down beside Rick, whose blue eyes are wet and grateful. He allows himself to be daring, just for a moment, and reaches for Rick’s hand, giving it a small squeeze before he finishes up his stitches.

The rest of the visit is quiet, but before Rick leaves, he puts a gentle hand on Siddiq’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. His voice is low and intimate, just between the two of them, and Siddiq knows it’s not just for the stitches.

* * *

 

It’s hours later, after Negan has swallowed both his dinner and his pride, that he speaks again.

“He gave me his painkillers?” For once, Negan sounds a little lost. The bravado, for a fleeting moment, has slipped. Maybe it’s just because he doesn’t see Siddiq as a real threat, but it’s something.

Siddiq nods and slurps his tomato soup, crosslegged on the empty bed beside him. “He stayed here the whole time. Wouldn’t let me treat him until he knew you were going to make it. We hadn’t gotten any of the supplies from the Kingdom yet so we were short on meds, and he turned them down so you wouldn’t wake up shouting and rip your stitches.”

Negan glares at the ceiling, and Siddiq has to resist the urge to laugh. He looks like a grumpy kindergartner who got put in time-out. “Rick has a fucking martyr complex,” Negan mutters, like that somehow changes anything.

Siddiq shrugs. “He’s not the one who called himself a savior.”

He’s beginning to learn how shut Negan up.

* * *

Negan’s healing up well, but he’s not the only one injured. Most of the Kingdom and Oceanside dwellers have returned to their homes, which has freed up some space at the Hilltop, but the fact of the matter is that Alexandria is still in ruins, and the Hilltop isn’t big enough to accommodate them all forever.

Together, Rick and Maggie call a meeting. He can tell that she’s tense- she doesn’t like having Negan here, doesn’t like that he’s alive, doesn’t agree with the call he made.

And maybe it wasn’t his call to make. Maybe it should have been put to a vote. But the second Carl’s name had passed Negan’s lips, Rick knew that he couldn’t go through with the deed himself.

Alexandria will need a lot of work to be refortified, and even though they’re stepping on each other’s toes at the Hilltop right now, the first priority is making sure that all of the communities are in agreement about how things will be run from now on. Alexandria will be rebuilt, but they have to take care of the people before the places. That means medical supplies to the injured at the Hilltop and the Sanctuary.

“The infirmary in Alexandria- was it still intact when you left?” Maggie asks.

Rick can hardly remember what Alexandria looked like when he and Michonne left. All he can see when he pictures it is the church where his son died, the horrible, agonizing wait on the front porch, the gunshot that he wished had been for him. The white sheet Michonne had wrapped Carl in, the limp, heavy weight of his son’s corpse cradled against his chest as he’d carried him out to the cemetery. 

He thinks about how all of the times in recent memory that he's carried Carl like that, it's been out of necessity: when he was shot and Rick had carried him all the way to Hershel's farm, when he'd lost his eye and Rick had carried him to the infirmary. He remembers a time before all of this, when he would carry a much younger Carl like that because he'd fallen asleep on car rides or on the couch. How he'd hoist him up gently, trying not to wake him, and tuck him into his bed with a kiss to the top of his head. 

He blinks hard, his vision blurry. “What?”

Michonne’s hand is on his back, comforting and steady. “The infirmary wasn’t burning. There should be some supplies there. We could send a couple people, just get in and out. We closed the gate before we left, but there were still walkers inside the walls.”

Rick hears his voice before he even thinks to speak. “I’ll go.”

Michonne frowns. “Not alone.”

He nods. “Not alone.”

* * *

Luckily, Negan’s asleep when Rick goes to visit Siddiq. He edges past the beds and quietly knocks on the half-wall separating the man’s bedroom from the infirmary. There’s a curtain strung up in the gap that Rick imagines doesn’t do a great job of blocking out Negan’s voice.

“Come in.”

Rick pushes the curtain aside and the younger man looks up from the book he’s reading. “Rick. You alright? Do you need-”

Rick waves him down. “I’m fine. I was just wondering if you’d come to Alexandria with me. We need to get all the supplies out of the infirmary to use here and I just- I need someone to come with me. For backup.”

Siddiq blinks. “And you want _me_ to come?” He doesn’t mean it to come out sounding as incredulous as it does, but he can’t say he’s not surprised. He would have figured Rick would want to take Michonne or Daryl or Rosita- someone he knows and trusts.

“If you want to. Figured you’d know what we need.” Which is true, but also…he likes Siddiq. And he still feels a little guilty for being so brusque with him when he’d first entered the fold.

“Yeah,” Siddiq nods. “Okay. I’ll go.”

Rick nods. “Good. Tomorrow morning, then.”

He leaves the other man in peace. As he’s walking out, he hears Negan's bed shift, and his stomach drops.

“Rick.”

Negan’s voice is quiet, raspy, and Rick braces himself. He reaches for the doorknob, and the bed shifts again. “Rick- _fuck_ , _shit, motherfuck_ -” Rick’s head whips around when Negan curses, sounding pained, and sees the man trying to sit up in bed. He’s by the bedside in an instant, one hand on the man’s chest to keep him from rising further up.

“You’re supposed to be stayin’ still. Bein’ careful.” Negan grimaces and slides back down onto the pillows, his eyes locked onto Rick’s. The look makes Rick go tense and wary, anticipating more barbed words thrown at him.

Instead, there’s this look on Negan’s face, something foreign. It’s as if he wants to speak, but he seems to swallow his words like a bitter pill and shocks Rick by raising a hand and placing it over the one Rick still has resting on his chest. Rick thinks maybe he’s going to grab him and try to yank him forward and throw him off balance, but he just lets their hands rest together over the steady drum of his heartbeat.

It’s not quite an apology, but Rick thinks it might be the closest his wounded pride can manage.

* * *

It’s tense and uncomfortable in the morning as Siddiq clambers into the passenger seat beside Rick. He gets the distinct feeling that the other man would have preferred to walk the whole way there just to blow off steam and keep his mind occupied. They don’t speak as Rick speeds down the road, and after a little while the cloying silence seems to get to Rick as well.

“What, ah- what kind of music you like?” Rick asks awkwardly as he reaches to turn on the stereo. “Not sure’s what in-”

He’s cut off by the loudest, most obnoxious banjo twanging that Siddiq’s ever heard, the volume cranked up like whoever was driving the car last had been trying to draw every walker for miles.

“Fuck!” Rick shouts over the noise, scrambling to turn the volume down or turn the stereo off altogether. They heave twin sighs of relief when the noise is gone. Rick’s hand is back on the steering wheel.

“Not really into whatever that was,” Siddiq says, tossing a pebble at the cracking sheet of ice that is the tension in the car.

Rick glances over at him and their eyes meet for the briefest moment before they both break into raucous laughter, the kind that makes their sides ache and tears well in their eyes. When they finally have to pause to catch their breath, the air feels lighter around them.

* * *

The mission is supposed to be getting in and out as quick as possible, but that doesn’t happen because as soon as Rick and Siddiq get inside the walls, Rick starts taking out the walkers stumbling through the streets. Not methodically or stealthily so they can get to the infirmary- he just starts slashing at them with his axe, his free hand on his gun and ready to draw if he needs to.

It’s not like Siddiq minds- there really aren’t too many to handle. He covers Rick’s back, sinking his knife into skull after rotten skull. They stalk through Alexandria for at least an hour like that, taking out every walker in the streets. Most of the houses seem to be closed up, but they both know better to assume. They also know better than to burn daylight going through every nook and cranny of the place on their own.

Or, at least, Siddiq does. Rick, on the other hand, seems to have a single minded focus.

“Rick,” Siddiq tries, one hand on his arm. “We got most of them, alright? Made our job later a lot easier. It’ll take us the days to clear all these houses on our own. Let’s just get to the infirmary.”

“We- I need to-” Rick starts and stops, and engine turning over without starting. When Siddiq looks at him, he sees the horror, the grief there for his lost home.

“Rick. We will. But not today.”

Rick nods, his eyes vague but understanding. “Yeah.” His hand falls away from his belt. “Thought you’d want to. What you said before- about what your mother believed. Their souls bein' trapped.”

Siddiq’s heart aches. “Sometimes the best way to honor the dead is to take care of the living first.”

Rick’s eyes, crystalline blue, turn up to the sky, but it’s not a dismissive gesture. Rather, it looks like he’s trying to keep from crying. The smile he gives seems to crack him open. “Right. The infirmary’s- it’s right over there. Do you need me to-?”

Siddiq already knows what he’s asking. "No, I’m alright. Well-equipped.” He pats the knife in his pocket, the gun holstered on his hip. “We already cleared it, anyway. And I know what to grab. Go ahead.”

Rick nods, eyes downcast toward his worn cowboy boots. Eyes on earth or the sky, he can’t stand to see what lies between. “Thank you.”

They part ways from there, and Siddiq watches Rick’s retreating back for a moment as he heads toward one of the houses.

* * *

He doesn’t set foot inside his house, because that’s a different kind of unbearable. He doesn’t want to go inside and pretend that things are like they were. Doesn’t want to remember Carl reading comics on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table, doesn’t want to remember a time when Michonne’s katana hung peacefully over the mantle, doesn’t want to think about Carol in the kitchen baking cookies or Daryl on the porch gutting squirrels to keep the nosier neighbors at bay.

Just standing on the porch, he can picture the brief few months of peace they had here, and it nearly brings him to his knees.

 _The world is ours_ , he’d told Michonne one morning over breakfast.

He still wants to believe that- that the world belongs to the living, the survivors, the people who want to make things right. But seeing Alexandria fall, seeing _Carl..._

It’s hard to keep a hold of that sentiment.

Something on the porch catches his eye. Something new, something blue.

A few steps closer, and his heart stutters in his chest. _Handprints_. Carl’s and Judith’s, side by side in blue paint on the pale wood of the porch. He knows, he _knows_ that they’re new- he would have noticed them otherwise.

_Carl must have done this with her right before-_

He can’t go any closer, it feels like hallowed ground. Rick makes his retreat, the steeple of the church filling his vision.

* * *

The infirmary is fairly picked-over, which isn’t surprising since Michonne and Rick grabbed a few things on their way out of Alexandria after it was attacked. It’s clear that they just grabbed what they could quickly get to, though, because there are a fair few bottles of pills still stashed away. Siddiq grabs everything and shoves it into his bag. _Better to have it and not need it._

It doesn’t take long, and he considers lingering a while longer just to give Rick some time, but then he thinks of the way Rick was intent on clearing the place, thinks of him grief-stricken and not thinking clearly and wandering through possibly walker-infested houses alone, and peels through the streets looking for him.

He’s not quite sure where to go at first- he’s never actually been inside the walls like this, and the place is much bigger than the Hilltop. All the houses look the same and Siddiq’s not sure which one is Rick’s.

_Where did he bury Carl? That’s probably where he is-_

A church steeple, crumbling slightly beneath fire damage, fills his vision as he rounds the corner. It seems as likely a place as any. Don’t churches sometimes have cemeteries?

Cautiously, one hand on his knife, he creeps toward the church. Hi surroundings seem clear, and there looks to be a grassy area around back between the church and the wall. He slips around the side of the building, and soft sounds meet his ears as he gets closer.

He sees the beginnings of the cemetery first- some of the earth is still fresh and slightly mounded, the graves headed with crude handmade crosses crafted from sticks. Upon closer inspection, he sees that they’re also marked with stones, some etched with initials, some with just first names.

Siddiq’s focus, however, lies squarely upon the man curled into himself atop the freshest grave there where the grass has yet to sprout. Half of Rick’s body is going to be smeared with mud when he gets up, but Siddiq knows that’s the least of his concerns.

He’s sobbing in that quiet, staccato way that tries not to draw attention to itself. It’s painful to hear because each hitching breath and whimper sounds like it’s being ripped right out of Rick’s chest and he’s fighting to keep it down each time and failing.

Siddiq almost turns and leaves so Rick can grieve in private, but the way the older man is stifling his sobs makes him falter. He can’t be sure whether it’s because Rick doesn’t want him to hear, or because he’s trying to keep from drawing walkers.

He takes a chance, steps forward, and Rick’s head turns toward him and he falls silent. His eyes are bloodshot and red-rimmed, a watery ocean-blue. When he sees that it’s Siddiq approaching and not a walker, he slumps back into the dirt.

“I can go,” Siddiq offers quietly. “If you want. But if- if you just want someone to watch for the dead…” he feels a little awkward, intruding on the man’s grief like this. “We can stay as long as you need. I’ll keep watch.”

There’s a long stretch of silence, and Siddiq’s about to leave to keep watch at the front of the church, but then Rick’s voice, rough as sandpaper, calls him back.

“Stay. You can- you can stay.”

That’s all he needs to sink into the grass beside Rick, close enough to touch.

It takes him a minute to gather the courage Growing up, his mother had always been a deeply affectionate person. She loved through touch. Whenever he or his sister had been sad, she would sit beside them, hold them, put a warm, motherly hand on their backs. It’s a horribly weak comparison, but he remembers when his sister, seven years older than him but still his best friend, had left for college. At eleven years old, he’d wept in her empty bedroom after she’d moved away, thinking he’d never see her again, and his mother had joined him on the floor, skirt flowing like a pooling waterfall all around her, and rubbed his back as he’d cried.

Rick’s in an awkward position for a hand on his back, so Siddiq places a hand on his side, just above his hip.

Maybe it’s his imagination, but Rick seems to uncurl slightly at the touch.

Oddly enough, Siddiq finds it peaceful. There’s a sort of quietude to the cemetery that makes him feel at ease despite the situation. There’s a touch of melancholy there, too- that knowledge that his mother, his sister, his father, his friends…none of them have graves that he can visit like this. He’s not sure if that makes it easier to move on, or more difficult.

It’s been a while since he’s had a connection to another person like this. He had forgotten how good it feels to be so close.

He’s not sure how much time passes, but eventually their easy, mournful silence is broken.

“I’m glad that Carl brought you here,” Rick says in a whisper. His voice is thick with the tears, and the words shock Siddiq to his core, but he doesn’t say anything. “I am. I just wish that-” the words crack like fragile china, and a shudder runs through him. Siddiq’s hand moves on its own in what he hopes is a soothing motion over Rick’s side.

“I know,” he replies. “I’m sorry.”

“I was wrong. I was wrong to- to chase you off when I did. Stupid. Paranoid. Thought that you were the enemy, and I keep thinking if I had just let you come with us then-then maybe-”

“You were protecting your own. It’s something everyone has to do at one point or another these days. I had to.”

“It’s hard to be a good man in this world,” Rick murmurs. He sits up, and Siddiq’s hand falls to his knee. He’s not sure if he should pull it away. “The things I’ve done- I always did them in the name of lookin’ out for my own. My _family_. Always felt like I was fallin’ short. Worried I was going to lead Carl the wrong way.” He shakes his head. “Seems like he became a good man in spite of me, and I’m grateful for it.” Warmth covers Siddiq’s hand and he startles, gazing at Rick’s hand atop his own. “You don’t need to be sorry, Siddiq.”

Siddiq looks up to see Rick’s head tilted down at him, trying to catch his eye. His hair, long and curling, nearly touches his shoulders like this, and Siddiq feels the urge to run his fingers through it. Rick is, indeed, half-smudged with dirt all down his gray shirt and jeans, some painting his arm and the side of his face. There’s a spot on his cheek where he can tell it was pressed into the dirt and his tears pooled there, because it’s almost muddy. He looks old and young all at once, weary red rimming vibrant blue eyes, and Siddiq aches.

There's a lot he wants to say, but he keeps it simple, speaks from the heart. 

"You _are_ a good man, Rick."

Whether or not the other man believes him, he can't say. But Siddiq knows it to be true. 

* * *

Siddiq offers to let Rick look through his bag and make sure they have everything they need before heading back to the Hilltop, but Rick waves him off.

“I trust you,” he says, because all of a sudden he realizes that he does. He likes the way the other man’s eyes go wide when he says it. His eyes are beautiful, so warm and homey in a way that Rick feels that his own aren’t. He feels at ease around Siddiq in a way he rarely ever does around new people.

Maybe that’s why, when Siddiq reaches out and rubs a thumb against the curve of his cheekbone, he doesn’t shy away, just loses his breath for what feels like an age. The other man’s smile touches off something in his chest and sends it fluttering like autumn leaves falling away from their branches to make room for the new.

“You had some dirt,” Siddiq explains when he draws his hand back, looking flustered. “I mean, it’s all over your shirt, too, but-” he trails off, unsure how to finish.

“Thank you,” Rick murmurs. The bag is in the car, the keys in Siddiq’s free hand, but they’re both lingering, half-leaning on the passenger side door.

Rick can’t account for his actions, because he should be reaching for the door handle, not the side of Siddiq’s face, which is hot beneath his touch like the sun runs through his veins.

Rick hasn’t kissed anyone in a very long time, and he’s kissed only one or two men, so long ago that their faces are blurred in his memories. Maybe that’s why he almost startles himself, despite being the one who closed the meager space between their lips.

He had forgotten what it felt like to kiss and be kissed, warm lips on warm lips, hands on the sides of faces and the backs of necks.

Siddiq’s breath hitches against Rick’s lips, and for a second Rick thinks that he’s read him wrong and he’s going to get shoved away or slapped, but the younger man presses in closer. Their lips are both a little chapped from not drinking enough today, but Rick couldn’t care less, because that constant gnawing pit of despair in his chest feels a little more shallow. When they finally part, their foreheads rest together.

"Wow," Siddiq breathes, and the peal of their breathless laughter mingling between them sounds like a new beginning. 


End file.
